Victoria Moore, general manager for reward and pensions at high street retailer Comet,told Personnel Today that increased numbers of age discrimination cases had affected many businesses’ long-service recognition schemes.

“Valuing long service and loyalty has become much more difficult in an era of age discrimination claims,” Moore said.

“It’s not unusual for a retailer to have someone working for you for their entire life, and employers should still be able to recognise loyalty. We’re not discriminating on the grounds of age, and the intention of legislation shouldn’t be about punishing businesses for rewarding loyalty.”

She said that providing dinners and awards for employees who had been with the company for 20 or more years would remain part of the company’s reward strategy.

At the annual CIPD Reward conference in London, Moore told attendees that non-financial benefits were key to successful retention and motivation of staff in cash-strapped times.

“In times of recession when there’s less money about, there is greater scope for pay disparity to increase because workers perceived as more productive have to be incentivised despite the downturn and recession, so there is a temptation for the employer to pay people who can work longer hours and more responsively than those who have responsibilities like childcare commitments.”